Coronavirus: BioNTech may provide Covid vaccine targeting Omicron to Hong Kong as early as third quarter if approved; city logs 1,685 cases
- According to clinical trial data, those who received two or three first-generation jabs should receive an extra dose of the second-generation booster
- US pharmaceutical giant Moderna also wants to sell 8 million doses of strain-specific vaccine to city
Hong Kong will have another choice of Covid-19 vaccine targeting Omicron, with drug maker BioNTech offering to make its second-generation jabs available locally as early as the third quarter of this year if approved by authorities, a pharmacist has told the Post.
The news came after the Post reported United States pharmaceutical giant Moderna’s was interested in selling 8 million doses of its Omicron-specific vaccine to the city in the fourth quarter of this year. It is in advanced discussions with the government on the application for emergency use.
“Both Moderna and BioNTech have the relevant data, which is internal and unpublished. They have submitted it to the World Health Organization and likely to the Department of Health for consideration,” the president of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Hong Kong, William Chui Chun-ming, told the Post.
The revelation came as Hong Kong’s Covid-19 caseloads continued to drop for a second day. Officials confirmed 1,685 infections on Tuesday, down from 1,873 the day before and 1,917 on Sunday, when the daily tally hit a recent high.
Tuesday’s cases comprised 1,533 local and 152 imported ones. The overall coronavirus tally in the city now stands at 1,241,181 cases, with 9,399 related fatalities as one more death was recorded.
Chui said he had been informed by Fosun Pharma, the company in charge of delivering the vaccine jointly manufactured by Germany’s BioNTech and US-based Pfizer, that they could make the doses available by the third quarter of this year.
“I believe the company is currently in discussion with the authorities regarding the purchase of the vaccine,” he said.
Pfizer and BioNTech on Saturday had also revealed the data regarding their two Omicron-adapted vaccine candidates, which are monovalent and bivalent respectively.
